by Steve Adubato, PhD

More and more people are using e-mail to communicate in the world of business and the results—as we all know—are not all good. Too many professionals are relying upon e-mail to communicate sensitive, complex and potentially controversial messages. Instead of walking down the hall and having a face to face meeting, some people would rather send an e-mail so they don’t have to look someone in the eye and say what they really know has to be said.

Avoiding direct face to face communication is only one of the many pitfalls of how e-mail is being used and abused in the workplace. With this in mind, consider some of the “best practices” of communicating via e-mail:

--I know many of us, including me, are guilty of not putting descriptive language in the subject line. This is a bad communication mistake. By simply saying “hi” you are potentially sending the message that your e-email is generic and not especially important. Compare this to a subject line that says; “Important development on the Johnson project.” By taking just a few moments to provide such a description, it tells the recipient that this e-mail is important and needs to be read.

--No matter how an e-mail comes to you, make sure when responding you use the sender’s name in your response. Just by saying; “Hi Mary. I got your e-mail today and here’s what I’m thinking…” compared to “Got your e-mail today. Here’s what I’m thinking…” makes all the difference in the world. Of course it is easier just to respond and sometimes that is appropriate, but on many other occasions it is absolutely necessary to refer to the person by name. By not doing it, you run the risk of seeming impersonal and unconnected, which taken to its extreme comes across as uncaring and that is definitely not the message you want to send.

-- The best e-mails are often the shortest e-mails. Any e-mail that goes on more than three paragraphs is wrought with problems. If those e-mails are not printed out and dissected by the reader, much of the content is lost in the translation. And since most people try not to print out e-mails in an effort to reduce paper clutter and be more eco-friendly, it cries out for e-mails to be more concise and to the point.

--When possible, write e-mails in bulleted form. Instead of writing a long, detailed narrative with words bunched together in a single paragraph that goes on forever, break up your e-mail. Do it in pieces or sections. Create some white space in between those bulleted items. Just by rearranging the information you communicate to be more reader friendly, you are much more likely to be understood the way you intended and get a response that’s more useful.

--Limit the number of people who receive your e-mail. When you are cc’d on an e-mail that has 20, 30 or even more copied recipients, how does that make you feel? Not so special, right? So why then would you send an e-mail cc’ing so many people? The key is to be more selective. Who needs to be copied on this e-mail? Is it your objective to simply cover your behind or is it to actually have someone read it so they can be in the loop? The vast majority of e-mails that cc any more than six to eight people could be cut in half if the sender were simply more discerning in deciding who should be copied.